Carnaval de La Vega Brings Out The Devils

Shrove Tuesday os also known as Pancake Day or Fat Tuesday. Traditionally it was the day you used up all your rich food ingredients (butter, eggs etc.) before you started fasting for the season of Lent in the Christian calendar. We were in France so in lieu of pancakes we had crepes. The crepes were delicious and I wolfed mine down before I took any photos. Sorry, needs must.

All the different carnival festivities in the world are a pre-Lenten tradition, too. The most famous of these festivals are the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the Carnival in Venice and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. At a travel show last month, I met representatives from the Dominican Republic who told us about the Carnavale de La Vega which is the most popular Dominican carnival.

Some say that the mask’s features represent the Spaniards (big mouths, long noses) who were considered devil-like because they enslaved the natives and the Africans. The masks are typically oversized and have huge horns. They were originally brought over from Spain and then customised by the African slaves.

The Limping Devil also carries a vejiga or “bladder” (nowadays made out of synthetics) filled with air which he would hit people with in order to strike out the bad in them. The enthusiastic whipping has got so bad that the authorities have put down rules. You can get hit only on the backside and if you are in the parade, not watching from the sidewalk. I wonder how much the rules get obeyed in the chaos of a carnival!

The first Dominican Carnival goes back to the 16th century. The Spanish would let their slaves have some fun for a day. The Spanish, however, were very religious and needed the festival to have some sort of religious significance so it became a battle of good versus evil (the devil). There is also a story that the early carnivals depicted the battle between the Moors and the Spanish.

The Carnavale de la Vega occurs every weekend in February in the town. It also coincides with the festivities for the Dominican Republic’s independence from Haiti which is celebrated on February 27 each year. The Dominican carnivals are supposed to be the first ones celebrated in the New World (even predating the more famous ones in New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro).

La Vega is the third biggest city in the Dominican Republic with a long history dating back to the time of Christopher Columbus who built a fort nearby. The fort was needed to protect the gold being mined nearby and taken from the island to Spain. Eventually a settlement developed around the fort.

I would love to visit the Dominican Republic and especially check out the amazing Carnival de La Vega. I’m pretty sure my kids would be pretty dangerous with a vejiga as well!

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